


In Memory Rejoice

by MilesHibernus



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Depression, General Hydra Awfulness, M/M, Memory Loss, Murder, Rape, Torture, attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 00:29:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7130819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilesHibernus/pseuds/MilesHibernus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ready to comply," says Bucky Barnes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Memory Rejoice

He can’t walk when they take him out of the tank. Two of the guards haul him down the corridor and drop him in the holding cell. He lies on the floor and shudders the ice from his limbs. The power source in the metal arm helps, at least.

Thawing burns, but he doesn’t cry anymore, not for something as trivial as this. Eventually he warms enough that he’s only cold, cold as the last three days before payday, wearing gloves in the apartment because no one wants to admit to their ma that they don’t have the cash to keep the radiators on.

His ma had to get the bad news twice. He wishes he'd just stayed dead the first time, but fat chance of that, some people don’t know when to stop.

As soon as he can reliably move he pushes himself to his knees. If they come in and find him still lying down… he’s not making that mistake again. He kneels, the occasional stray tremor still shaking him, and tries to empty his mind. It’s easier than it used to be, but the memories sometimes push in anyway, fragments of faces and voices, the diamond concentration of looking through a rifle sight, the exhilaration of dancing with a pretty girl. He grits his teeth but his eyes stay dry. He doesn’t try to keep track of time.

He doesn’t look up when the door scrapes open; he’s learned that lesson too. Booted feet stop on the other side of the bars and wait. He waits. He doesn’t speak until spoken to, not in base.

“Report.” The voice isn’t familiar, and neither is the face when he raises his eyes.

“I don’t know you, sir,” he says in the Russian they beat into him first thing. His voice is rough, rougher than it used to be. “Identity code required.” It won’t tell him anything about who this person is, but it will verify that he has the authority to issue orders. The colonel is already holding the book open, and his face betrays a hint of satisfaction as he begins, “Longing.”

By now he knows the sequence as well as he knows his own name. They made sure of that years ago. He wonders idly what happened to Colonel Lukin, but he’ll never know unless someone happens to mention it where he can hear. It’s possible the man just retired; who knows how long he’s been in the tank this time?

“Freight car,” the colonel finishes. “Soldat?”

“Identity code confirmed. Ready to comply,” says Bucky Barnes.

* * *

The target is a man, and neither collateral damage nor unusual brutality is required. Bucky is grateful for that. For most people it would be a challenge, because the target is well guarded, but even the most paranoid security can’t guard against a rifle shot from three quarters of a mile away. There’s no satisfaction in watching the target fall, but at least debriefing will be smoother.

He’s well outside the security perimeter and he walks briskly, like a man with somewhere to be. He’s wearing civvies, not the black leather nightmare they like to strap him into, so he just has to keep the left hand in his pocket. The language on the signs isn’t German or French and he only has to walk a few blocks to the rendezvous point; other than that it’s no different from any other covert mission he’s ever done. That and there’s not going to be a welcome when he’s back to base, just _mission report_ and what comes after.

On the street he passes an agitated policeman, hurrying in the direction of the chaos that has surely erupted, and for half a second Bucky entertains the fantasy of stopping the man, confessing to being the shooter, but he knows how that ends. These aren’t Nazis; these people believe in trials even for something like him, and they wouldn’t execute him before his handlers could find him.

When he was well enough to understand where he was and who had him, the second time, he’d slit his wrist with a broken drinking glass. They’d found him before he bled out. He doesn’t know where they got the girl, but they made him watch as they put out her eyes with the piece of glass. They cut her hands and feet to shreds and pushed her out naked into the snow, and told him they knew where his sisters lived.

He doesn’t try to kill himself anymore.

By the time he climbs into the waiting extraction van, pulling the door shut behind him, Bucky’s shaking so hard it’s visible. There are only two guards, but one of them smirks and Bucky’s stomach turns over. “Come here,” the smirking one says. The other frowns, but Bucky knows better than to count on him intervening.

“The mission isn’t over,” he says. At least his voice is steady. The van lurches into motion.

“Come here, or do you want me to tell Andropov that you were late to the rendezvous?” the guard says. Bucky can’t say that his guts fill with ice—he knows what that actually feels like—but escape attempts meant being taken out of the tank three days early so he'd have time to heal up before they sent him out. He knows that wouldn’t have stopped—some people, but he’s not that strong. He can’t face that again. Instead of sitting on the bench at the side of the van, he drops to his knees and shuffles across the short distance to the smirking guard’s feet as the man unbuckles his belt.

“Ready to comply,” Bucky says.

* * *

The trip back to base is long and boring. Bucky does get some sleep, even with the flight crew and the guy who drove the van. The guard who disapproved doesn’t take a turn.

Bucky doesn’t make plans anymore, but he still notices.

* * *

He’s never understood why they insist on giving him a prisoner’s uniform to make his reports. They could just leave him in whatever he wore on the mission, and it’s not like he gets to keep the clothes for more than a few minutes anyway.  
  
Maybe, he thinks, as he stands in the center of the concrete floor, it’s because they like to watch him strip. He tried to explain a few times what a thrill it was, watching a girl unbutton her dress, knowing what she was about to let him do, but of course he never managed to put it into words right. Bucky can hear one of the base personnel (a senior lieutenant, the highest-ranking man here right now, he was a junior the last time) coming up behind him. The skin on the back of his neck crawls and he can’t help bracing himself, not that it’ll make any difference. The plates in the metal arm shift and someone laughs.  
  
The lieutenant kicks him in the back of the knee. He could keep his balance or turn the fall into an attack—their own training made sure of that—but instead he lets himself go over, catching himself just enough not to break his face on the floor. There’s no point in doing this unable to breathe through his nose.  
  
The lieutenant plants one booted foot in the center of his back. “Bring that here,” he orders, and one of the others drags a bench away from the bars. “Up,” the lieutenant says, with one last grind to emphasize his point. Bucky sits up as the sergeant drops the bench in front of him. He leans into it, resting his weight on his chest, his face cradled in the crook of his right elbow. He’s in roughly the same position he’d be on hands and knees, but he has a little more support this way. They only give him support when they think he’s going to need it. “Soldat.”  
  
He forces the words out. “Ready to comply.”  
  
The lieutenant chuckles, low and mean, and says, “Yes, we know. We all know.” He leans down and winds his hand in Bucky’s hair—they keep it too long, can’t be bothered ( _Can’t be arsed, the idle wankers_ , says a woman’s voice, but he doesn’t want to think of her) to cut it often enough—and yanks his head up from the fragile sanctuary of his arm. “We all know what a good little whore you are, Soldat.” There’s a thoughtful pause. Bucky stares across the room at the wall. It’s dirtier than the last time he did this. “Or maybe you’re not a whore. No one has to pay you.” This time they all laugh.  
  
Bucky wants to be ashamed. He wants to hate them. The man he was when he got here would have spat defiance in their faces, would have fought them. He did fight them, when he first learned how to make the arm obey him. He killed four of them before the colonel then, the one who knew the right words, got to the base’s PA system.  
  
He remembers the smell of his own flesh on fire, and says nothing. Hating them is useless. Shame is useless. _Wanting_ is useless. There’s no one alive to come for him this time and he’s too cowardly to escape on his own, so he has to endure until someone manages to kill him. Zola told him he wouldn’t age as rapidly as he should.  
  
They aren’t always careful about what they say around him, which is how Bucky knows the little rat died in 1973 of bowel cancer.  Bucky can only hope he felt every fucking second of it.  
  
“Whores are paid,” the lieutenant says. Bucky drags his attention back to the present, where it needs to be. “So I think you’re a slut. After all, you do it for free.” He wags Bucky’s head up and down by the grip on his hair in an exaggerated nod. “You see? He agrees!” the lieutenant says to the room, and they all laugh again. “Well don’t worry. You don’t have to wait.” He lets go of Bucky’s hair. Bucky would like to put his head back down but the sergeant who brought the bench is already moving over, his hands working his belt. That one was around last time, and was wearing the same rank insignia. Bucky wonders if he’s unambitious, or if he just likes working out here in the middle of nowhere. No one who works with the Winter Soldier is _really_ incompetent, but pretending to be is one way to get assigned here, to what the Soviet Army proper considers a shit detail, guarding nothing.  
  
Meanwhile the lieutenant is settling down between Bucky’s legs, running his hands roughly over Bucky’s ass. His finger is ungentle, breaching Bucky’s hole at the same moment that the sergeant’s dick presses into his mouth.  
  
They didn’t tell him to be quiet, so he can grunt at the discomfort. It’s a small thing to be grateful for. Discomfort turns to pain when the lieutenant replaces his finger with his cock. He’s thick, but Bucky’s had worse.  
  
The lieutenant likes playing rough, in the tamest possible way; he slaps Bucky’s ass a few times, claws down his back with short fingernails. It’s all but lost in the background pain of the metal arm’s attachment points, but Bucky makes sure to shudder and flinch anyway; if this doesn’t get a reaction, the man might try worse.  
  
The sergeant just fucks his mouth in an efficient, businesslike way that makes Bucky wonder if he’s getting any pleasure out of it. He doesn’t play any games with breathing, either. They both finish, the sergeant slightly sooner, and switch out for an equally unimaginative pair of grunts. The second guard from the van, the one who wasn’t interested, is standing in Bucky’s peripheral vision, watching the whole thing with a complex expression. He still doesn’t seem very interested, and he still doesn’t seem to approve.  
  
By the time he’s been through six men, Bucky is starting to relax. He’ll be sore for a few hours, but sore is much, much less than he deserves for letting them use him to kill. None of them seem to be interested in hurting him enough that he won’t be able to go back into the tank. It’s happened a few times that Bucky got caught in a loop of being too damaged to go back into the tank right away and then got hurt again just as he was about to be ready, and at least in the tank it’s safe. He doesn’t have to think. If they kill him while he’s frozen, he’ll never know. Most of all, in the tank _he_ can’t kill anyone.  
  
It’s not difficult to give them the responses they want. He says what they tell him to say when he can, and makes pathetic noises when he can’t, and otherwise doesn’t pay much attention to the catcalls and laughter until the lieutenant says, “Karpov, you should take a turn.”  
  
The uninterested guard stands up a little straighter, and now that Bucky takes a more careful look he’s _not_ uninterested, not entirely. But he says evenly, “Thank you, but it’s not to my taste.”  
  
The lieutenant, who’s standing where Bucky can’t see him, pauses for a second and says, in a much colder voice, “Karpov. You should take a turn.”  
  
From the look on Karpov’s face there’s a battle of wills going on. Bucky doesn’t much care who wins it, except that he feels a little bad for this Karpov guy. He’s got the look of a true believer who’s just now noticing the feet of clay, and when he steps away from the wall it’s reluctantly. “This is not appropriate,” he says, even as he’s opening his trousers.  
  
The lieutenant says jovially, “He doesn’t mind, do you, Soldat?”  
  
“Ready to comply,” Bucky says. They are not allowed to punish him for saying that.  
  
Karpov takes a long time about it, but Bucky doesn’t mind.

* * *

The next time Bucky comes out of the tank, Karpov is still around. He’s a captain now, and he leads the team Bucky goes out with. They lose two men.  
  
Karpov doesn’t let anyone touch him on the trip back, and Bucky manages a smile for that, quick and when no one else is looking. It won’t help, but he appreciates the effort.

* * *

When he’s stripped, they put him in restraints, heavy enough that even his bones will break before the metal will. They hang him from the chain in the middle of the training cage, high enough so that he can just barely take some of his weight on his toes, and leave him there.  
  
He doesn’t let himself drift, because there’s always the risk that he’ll start to speak aloud. He _can_ make this worse, and there’s only one word (one name) that’ll do it more thoroughly than letting them hear him say _Barnes James sergeant 32557038_. (He doesn't understand why it's still comforting when Sergeant James Barnes has been dead for so long.) So he hangs as his real arm slowly turns to fire and it gets harder to breathe. He knows there’s a camera on him, that they watch him too carefully for him to suffocate this way, but a guy can dream.  
  
He’s a little surprised when he hears the footsteps coming; he could probably still stand if he had to, though he doesn’t guarantee walking. It’s Karpov, leading the five remaining members of the team, and Andropov. Andropov circles him silently while the team members fan out to surround him. Bucky doesn’t look up. Andropov’s boots stop in front of him after two slow circuits. “Soldat,” he says.  
  
His muscles tense uselessly, trying to prepare him to fight or run when he can’t do either. “Ready to comply,” he says, without breath for more than a whisper.  
  
Andropov backhands him, hard. “Clearly not,” he says coldly. “Since your incompetence led to the deaths of two good men today.”  
  
It’s bullshit, and Bucky knows Andropov knows it, but arguing would be worse than useless. This isn’t really a punishment so much as a chance to show the members of the team that they’re more valuable than he is, that the Fist of Hydra is a weapon and they’re people.  
  
It’s been a while since they did this, and Bucky would be hyperventilating if he could breathe that fast.

* * *

By the time they get around to fucking him, he physically can’t speak. It’ll be a day or so before his vocal cords recover; in the meantime he’s reduced to mouthing _please please_ into the floor and hoping he’s not saying it in English because he can’t tell anymore and they might be able to read the wrong language in the shape of his lips. They’ve been careful not to break any major bones but he’s long since lost track of individual injuries. He’ll be in the holding cell for a while before he can go back to the tank.  
  
They don’t try to make him get hard for Veselova, which Bucky is pretty sure they intend as more punishment. It’s a faint satisfaction that they think he cares. (He doesn’t know what year it was the last time he tried to jerk off, but the flood of memory that came with the sensation was so intense it was sickening. He hasn’t touched himself since.) He can brace himself enough on the metal arm to be able to breathe, and fucking usually means they’re done, and Bucky’s so tired he can taste it but they won’t be sending him out while he’s this fucked up so he’ll have some time when he’s awake and not killing anyone and that’s better than any blanket would be.  
  
The last of the squad is still cursing through his orgasm when Andropov crouches next to Bucky’s head. There are two of him, which is a good sign because it means both Bucky’s eyes are open. He doesn’t seem to be concerned that there’s not a lot of focusing going on. “You know, Soldat, we know who you were,” he says, in a conversational tone. He doesn’t wait for a reply. Smart man, he’d be waiting a while. “Captain America’s 'right-hand man', isn’t that the saying?” Bucky wants to close his eyes. “But even now, you fail. Even after everything Hydra has taught you. So what good were you all those years ago?”  
  
Bucky blinks, slowly, trying to work out where this is going, and Andropov smiles at him, thin and cruel. “But then I realized, even such a man, even the great Captain America, would need something to warm his cock in the field, no?” He pets Bucky’s hair gently. “Did he let the others have you as well, Soldat, or did he keep you for himself?”  
  
_No_ , Bucky thinks, and shifts his weight, and Andropov’s eyes are only beginning to widen when the metal hand closes around his throat.  
  
When Andropov is dead Bucky drops the corpse and lets the others knock him out.

* * *

They keep him in the infirmary for two full days and put him in the holding cell to heal the rest of the way. He gets to keep the scrubs, probably a concession to the injuries.  The lights never turn off and he’s always hungry anyway, so all he can say is that his broken finger is mostly healed and all his loose teeth are firmly resettled in their sockets by the time Karpov walks in, carrying a mug of coffee in one hand and the book in the other. Bucky lurches away from the wall he’s been leaning against but Karpov says, “You don’t need to do that, Soldat. Here.” He extends the mug through the bars of the cell.  
  
Bucky freezes where he is, staring. Karpov makes a tiny encouraging gesture with the mug and says, “Here, this is for you.”  
  
Bucky gets slowly to his knees, not daring to look away, and says, “Ready to comply.”  
  
Karpov sighs and makes an unhappy face. He sets the mug down on the floor and opens the book. “Longing,” he says, and Bucky relaxes. Karpov’s been promoted.  
  
“Freight car,” Karpov finishes. “Soldat?”  
  
“Ready to comply,” Bucky repeats.  
  
Karpov taps the mug with his boot. “Come and take this, then. It’s for you to drink.”  
  
Bucky wonders where this guy got the idea that he could play the Mutt and Jeff routine alone, but he’s not stupid enough to ignore a direct order. Karpov takes a step back as Bucky gets closer to the bars, but he doesn’t look afraid.  
  
The mug’s startlingly warm against his cool skin and Bucky has to resist the urge to clutch it to his chest. He takes a cautious sip instead. It’s black with not much sugar, and it’s almost as bad as the stuff Frenchie used to stew in his little saucepan. He realizes his eyes are closed and opens them to find Karpov watching him with an expression that Bucky can’t immediately identify. “It’s fine, drink it,” Karpov says.  
  
When the coffee’s gone Karpov says, “Sit down, Soldat.”  
  
Bucky does. It’s nice to take his weight off his knees. On the other side of the bars Karpov sits as well, out of easy reach—strange, but not a complete idiot, looks like. “You won’t be punished any further for Andropov,” he says. “Bringing up your old comrade, that was inappropriate.”  
  
“Thank you, sir,” Bucky says, and waits.  
  
Karpov catches on quickly. “Your work is necessary, Soldat, but I know it’s...difficult for you,” he says after only a few seconds. “I am your commanding officer now. Tell me what I can do to make it easier.”  
  
“There’s nothing,” Bucky says, but something must show in his face because Karpov smiles. It’s a small smile, but it looks sincere.  
  
“Tell me.”  
  
Bucky looks down at the mug in his hands and says quietly, “One bullet.”  
  
There’s a long pause. “You know I can’t do that,” Karpov says. He doesn’t sound angry. “With you Hydra can shape history.”  
  
Bucky makes himself meet Karpov’s eyes and says, “Then there’s nothing.”  
  
Karpov takes a deep breath, lets it out again. “I understand,” he says, and gets to his feet. “I’ll need that.” Bucky stands up to hand him the mug. “In a few hours the guards will take you back to the cold sleep,” Karpov says.  
  
“Yes, sir,” Bucky replies.

* * *

He can’t walk when they take him out of the tank. Two of the guards haul him down the corridor—but when they get to the holding cell, they drop him onto a mattress. It’s thin, musty, and stuffed with straw, but it keeps the floor from sucking the heat out of him almost as fast as he can generate it. He warms up so fast that by the time Karpov comes in he’s actually _warm_.  
  
Karpov reads the sequence from the book, in accordance with protocol, but Bucky doesn’t think he needs it. Then he sits, in a straight wooden chair he brought in with him, and waves his guards out. “Good morning, Soldat.”  
  
“Ready to comply,” Bucky says.  
  
“This isn’t a mission,” says Karpov, and Bucky swallows relief. “I have a question for you, an offer.” He smiles, that small honest smile. Bucky thinks it’s strange that anyone connected with Hydra can produce that smile. “A choice, perhaps. I know you haven’t had many of those since you came to us.”  
  
“Yes, sir,” Bucky agrees cautiously.  
  
Karpov’s face falls into that complicated, unreadable expression, but he only says, “I could not help but notice your problem, the last time we spoke.”  
  
Maybe being warm makes him stupid, because Bucky says, “I don’t have any problems, Colonel.” Karpov raises his eyebrows. “Problems have solutions.”  
  
“Ah,” Karpov says. “Then I’m pleased to tell you you’re wrong.” He sits forward in his chair. “You find your work difficult, and from your reaction to Colonel Andropov’s...comments, it seems to me that your difficulty arises from your memory.”  
  
Bucky has officially taken leave of his senses because he has to stop himself from actually saying _Gee, pal, you think?_ , and his shoulders twitch. Karpov doesn’t look angry, though, and it’s not protocol to give him rope to hang himself with; failures are to be corrected immediately.  
  
Karpov says, “Soldat. We can make you forget.”  
  
Bucky—stops.  
  
“What,” he says when he can draw the breath to say it. “What do you mean?”  
  
“It will be painful,” Karpov says. “It will probably have to be repeated regularly. It is not entirely safe. But…”  
  
“It will make me forget,” Bucky says. Karpov nods. Bucky swallows hard.  
  
“I won’t order you to do this,” Karpov says.  
  
Bucky knows he doesn’t deserve to forget.  
  
He’s done terrible things because he couldn’t bear what would happen to him if he refused; he should have to live with that. He should have to remember every scream, every plea. He should tell Karpov no. It’s what a better man would do.  
  
His eyes sting. His face is wet. “Please,” he says. His voice is shaking. At least the word comes out in Russian.  
  
“Are you sure, Soldat?”  
  
He’s nodding before the question is completely finished. “Yes. _Yes_.”  
  
Karpov nods and says, “All right then.” He stands up and unlocks the door of the holding cell. “Come on.”  
  
“Now?”  
  
Karpov smiles. “I told them to be ready.” He offers Bucky a hand up and Bucky takes it. Karpov has graceful hands, beneath the gun calluses; Bucky can picture them writing or sketching. He didn’t even leave bruises, though he’s strong enough that he could have.  
  
Bucky walks down the corridors at Karpov’s side to the central room that used to be the launch chamber. There’s a new addition, a reclining chair that looks like nothing so much as the kind of thing you’d find in a dentist’s office. A bulky contraption is mounted behind the head and restraints for the arms and legs seem to be built in, along with metal wings that look hinged to fold over the occupant’s face. Bucky can see metal contact points glinting inside. Around it, standing at computers, are scientists in white coats. They all look wary at the sight of the Winter Soldier standing unrestrained next to their CO but no one says anything.  
  
“What year is it?” Bucky asks.  
  
“1985. June,” Karpov tells him.  
  
His baby sister is fifty-eight, his ma is dead. It’s been forty years since the _Valkyrie_ crashed.  
  
The chair sits in the sunken center of the chamber and they step down. Bucky pauses for a second with his real hand on the leather back. Karpov says, “They tell me it may help to think of the things you’d like to forget.” Bucky licks his lips and nods.  
  
He sits. He closes the restraints on his own legs and the metal arm; Karpov gets the real arm for him. He wonders how painful they expect this to be, but it doesn’t matter; he’s going to do it no matter what. “Thank you,” he says.  
  
“You’re welcome, Soldat,” Karpov says. “Yakov.”  
  
“My name is Bucky,” he says.  
  
“I’ll remember,” Karpov says, and steps back. “You may begin.”  
  
Nothing happens for a long, awful second, and Bucky’s afraid something has gone wrong, but then the wings fold in and the rig bends down into his line of sight, encircling his head like a halo as the contact points in the headpiece touch his face. He thinks, _Steve_ , and then the current surges through him and the world goes white.  
  
*  
  
“Longing,” says a voice, audible over his own ragged screams. “Rusted. Seventeen.” With every word the voice takes away his confusion, leaving only the pain. The pain is ebbing, though, and soon he’ll be empty. “Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign.” The words are important. “Homecoming.” The words tell him who to obey. “One.” The words give him order. “Freight car.”  
  
He looks up at the colonel, who shuts the book he’s holding and sets it on a metal table. The colonel says, “Good morning. Do you know who you are?”  
  
“No,” he says. It doesn’t matter.  
  
“You are the Winter Soldier,” the colonel tells him, and he nods.  
  
“Ready to comply.”


End file.
